


periwinkle blues (im writing a song about you)

by ereveros



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Canon, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7659079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ereveros/pseuds/ereveros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sehun's having a bad day and just wants to paint his nails. Chanyeol makes everything better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	periwinkle blues (im writing a song about you)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the interviews in the new Exoluxion photobook.  
> FAIR WARNING: inconsistent and weird/ awkward pacing, mkaay?  
> Proceed~

"Yah! Sehun-ah!" Chanyeol's voice sounds ahead of his appearance, his body brushing past the semi closed door to Sehun's room just a few seconds later. 

He flops onto the bed where the younger currently sits cross legged and flails his long limbs, arranging himself in a heap until his head can perch on Sehun's thigh. Chanyeol waits for a response, an acknowledgement, something, but when none comes and his boyfriend continues fiddling with whatever’s in his hands, he ploughs on anyway. 

"Why didn't you talk about me in your Exoluxion interview, huh? I gushed all about you but now I look stupid because you just talked about the members in general. Why won't you tell people how much you like me?" Chanyeol pouts up at his boyfriend, widening his eyes and clutching at Sehun's hip pitifully. Yet still the younger is unmoved, his focus not even on Chanyeol but instead directed at something above his head. 

Chanyeol did not come here for this. He came to sulk and yell and have Sehun laugh at him, then maybe give him lots of kisses and cuddles in bed as compensation. Seeing as this isn't currently happening, he sets out to correct the trajectory and return Sehun's attention back to its rightful owner. 

"Sehun-aaaah." Whining loudly, he starts wriggling his body, which, on a single sized bed such as this, spells definite disaster. Almost immediately, he hears faint solid  _clinks_ , the sound of things rattling upset on Sehun's lap, and maybe even a  _thud_  as something falls to the floor. Sehun starts to struggle, pushing silently at Chanyeol's head but can't get any real momentum when Chanyeol winds his arms around the younger's body, hugging himself to Sehun's torso and rubbing his face into soft cotton clothes. "Sehun-aaaaaaaah." 

Finally, Sehun makes a little disgruntled sound and Chanyeol feels the warm body in his arms shrug one last time. "Get off, hyung." 

By now, Chanyeol's sort of gathered something wrong. A quiet, minimal-response Sehun is most of the time an upset Sehun, and so Chanyeol stores away the uneasy twinge of anxiousness picking at his chest so he can do something about it. 

Unwinding his arms, Chanyeol rises up to a sitting position and turns to arrange his body around Sehun. Moments like these make him grateful for his abnormally long limbs, because as soon as he curls his legs around either side of his boyfriend and pulls him sideways into his chest, Sehun's body melts, tension drained and completely prone, smothered and warm in Chanyeol's hold. 

Chanyeol doesn't say anything, knowing what Sehun needs when he gets like this is touch, not words. So he starts by stroking his hand up and down Sehun's arm, slow and solid, up his shoulder and down his shoulder blades, dipping occasionally onto his lower back in lulling motions that seek to push out all the poison and bad energy from his body, just like Chanyeol's mum taught him. While he's stroking, his eyes roam down to Sehun's lap and spark with curiosity at what the younger had been fiddling with. He waits patiently, and it's only when Sehun lets out an audible sigh, less heavy and more airy, that Chanyeol hums and asks. "What have you got here?" 

Sehun hums back, shrugging a little, and they both look down to where five or six little bottles of what Chanyeol knows to be nail polish rest scattered on the younger's lap and in his hands. They're all different shades, all pale blues and purples, rich greens, glittery reds and metallic golds, and the colour of it all somehow loosens the worried corners of Chanyeol's eyes and makes the air feel lighter around them, almost. 

"Pretty," says Chanyeol, because they are. "Who're they for?"

Sehun shifts uncomfortably, a faint blush dusting cheeks before his face settles into a weak scowl. "Me."

 _Oh_ , Chanyeol thinks.  _Okay_. He looks at Sehun's hands, palms as large as his own but fingers definitely longer, more slender. He thinks about how they'd look with some bright colour on the nails, looks up at Sehun and catches downcast eyelashes, the lingering remnants of a blush on his cheeks.

"Pretty," Chanyeol repeats, because he is. "Which colour do you like best?"

Sehun blinks up at him, the first direct eye contact he's gotten since he entered the room, and all of a sudden Chanyeol has to work to regulate his breathing and facial ticks. He looks back down at his boyfriend steadily, trying so hard not to lose himself in the feelings that come up to crush him like this is the first time he's ever met eyes with Sehun. _Now's not the time to be ridiculous_ , he thinks. 

"Periwinkle blue," Sehun says quietly. He picks out a little pale blue bottle from the rest in his lap and fiddles with it until Chanyeol takes it from him, spinning it around in his palm and smoothing his thumb over the cold glass casing. 

"Do you want me to help put it on?" 

Again Sehun looks up, but this time Chanyeol can see things in those dark eyes instead of blankness, things that flicker surprise and puzzlement and a little excitement and fondness. Chanyeol could almost cry in relief. 

"Yeah, okay." Hesitant at first, but picking up speed when he realises Chanyeol remains serious, Sehun bustles about, clearing his lap, retrieving another bottle of the same blue from where it had fallen on the floor, and then finally coming to settle next to Chanyeol with his legs thrown over the elders lap. 

Placing a pillow under his feet, Sehun hands over one of the little bottles. 

"You do my toes, I'll do my hands," Chanyeol is told. 

They open the bottles and Chanyeol is instantly hit with the chemical sweet smell he remembers from hot summer days spent cooped up in his childhood home, watching his sister paint her nails and eventually getting roped into helping with her toes. It's so familiar and a wave of fondness and nostalgia rush through him, pulling his mouth into a faint smile. 

Warm skin brushes against his bare shoulder and Chanyeol turns to press a quick kiss to the side of Sehun's head. The younger huffs but says nothing, and they start at the same time, dipping the little brushes into the pots before running them over Sehun's nails. 

Pale blue colour paints on easy as anything and it's like magic, so smooth and satisfying and entrancing that they both immediately become absorbed. The silence stretches on, peaceful and content in the late night lull, only punctuated a few times by Sehun’s huffs of mild annoyance. Chanyeol, who remains quiet for the most part, is grateful for the little noises and bites his cheek from grinning when Sehun leans absently against his side, attention still wholly focused on his nails.

But sometime after Chanyeol starts on his fifth toe the calm is interrupted when a voice sounds from just behind the door.  

"Hey guys! I'm coming in, put on some clothes." Baekhyun strides in with a hand over his eyes, peeking between his fingers until he sees clothes on bodies before he removes his hands completely. 

"Chanyeol-ah, Yixing-ge wants- oh." He halts to a stop, blinking at the scene before him until a teasing look slides across his face and he flashes a boxy grin at them. "Well what do we have here?"

Both boys on the bed are silent and Chanyeol's about to say something, anything, to get rid of him because Byun Baekhyun at 2am is not conducive to optimum nail painting, but to his surprise, Sehun beats him to it. 

"What's it look like?" The younger mumbles, gaze intent on his hands. "We're painting my nails, hyung."

A laugh from their visitor and a  _tsk_  from Chanyeol as he realises he's accidentally smudged a nail he'd already finished with his palm. 

"That's pretty gay, guys." Baekhyun smirks at them, cocking his hip and crossing his arms. 

Sehun looks up and scowls at him, while Chanyeol exclaims in despair at the shift because now there's  _two_  nails smudged. "You're really funny hyung. We all know who spends the most on eyeliner here."

"Oh!" Baekhyun gasps, clutching at his chest as he throws himself onto Joonmyun's unoccupied bed, body bouncing twice on the mattress from sheer drama. "You wound me, Sehun-ah."

Sehun rolls his eyes and grunts, attention already refocused on covering up the patches of pink nail still visible through the blue polish on his pinkie. From his feet, Chanyeol flicks a quick glance at his boyfriend then Baekhyun, before returning to the task at hand. 

Silence descends once more, with Baekhyun observing the both of them from the other bed while Sehun and Chanyeol continue working, all together ignoring his presence. 

"Did you put on the primer?" 

Sehun lifts his head to blink at Baekhyun and after a beat, Chanyeol does the same. 

"You need the primer for it to stay on properly and not crack," Baekhyun continues. From the corner of his eye, Chanyeol can see Sehun blink harder and his jaw clench, can feel his body tightening next to him from the looseness Chanyeol had worked so hard for. 

"You also need it to protect your nails, yah! Sehun-ah, why-"

"Okay! That's enough Baekhyun for tonight, come on." Chanyeol caps his little bottle and carefully manoeuvres himself from under Sehun's feet to pull Baekhyun up from the other bed and bodily remove him from the room. 

When they get to the door, Baekhyun turns around and leans in close. "I'll tell Yixing-ge to get some sleep and talk to you tomorrow, yeah? Take care of maknae."

Chanyeol shouldn't be surprised, but he is, kind of. Sometimes it's easy to forget that this insightful, caring Baekhyun coexists with the indiscriminately loud and potentially brash beagle Baek, and that while one side is making noise and distracting everyone, the other just stands back and observes. 

"Yeah, okay."

Baekhyun smiles, "Good man," and reaches up to pat condescendingly at Chanyeol's cheek like some creaky old ajusshi before walking away and leaving Chanyeol to close the door behind him. 

Back on the bed, Sehun sits upright, face set straight and grim as he paints at his nails militantly. "We don't need a primer," he says through his lips. 

"Nah, we don't." Chanyeol climbs back in under Sehun's legs and retrieves his paint bottle. "My sister never used it anyway."

He gets to work on Sehun's second foot, picking back up on the rhythm he'd lost and eventually feels Sehun relax once more into his task. 

They continue on in silence, with Chanyeol occasionally breaking out into a hum almost subconsciously. He finds he can't help it- the shade of blue they're painting Sehun's nails is so warm and gentle, like the sky and a few of its white clouds were all melted in one big pot together, or maybe like the colour of Sehun's favourite sheets in the early morning light had bled right into the bottle. He wants to write a song about this colour, wants to write about Sehun's fingers and warm hair and loose bodies, wants to write about little glass bottles of colour and calm and the faint fluttering of someone else's heartbeat on his bare shoulder. 

He thinks he can hear the beginnings of a meandering melody, light guitar strums and slow percussion, when he  sweeps his small brush against the tip of Sehun's little toe and realises he's done. 

Leaning back for an inspection then going back in a couple times to top up some patches, Chanyeol lifts his elbows in a little cheer. 

Next to him, Sehun looks over and the corners of his mouth lift slightly, pleased. It's like sunlight peeking through the blinds on a window, and Chanyeol unabashedly puts that in the song too. (He’s decided to accept his cheesiness as inherent, and now takes it in stride.)

Capping up his bottle of nail polish and finding the remover to clean up the messy bits, Chanyeol leans back on the wall behind the bed, gathering Sehun's legs closer to his chest and resting his head atop his boyfriends'. He hums softly while he watches Sehun work, adding little bits here and there as they come to him until he has a fully developed melody and some skeletal lyrics. He’s itching to find his phone and record it, but lazy contentment keeps him still. That, and he’s also not stupid enough to break a moment just to write a song about it.

(Not this time, anyway.)

So he leans on Sehun, feels him lean back, and lets the gentle rise and fall of the younger’s breath count the beats in his head. Sehun works with slow, careful hands, painting on the last thick coats of blue until he’s satisfied, then stops to watch his fingers idly as they bend and flare, catching the room’s lamplight in glistening streaks on his wet nails.

He’s done fairly well, considering he doesn’t have an older sister. The blue glints soft and bright on the ends of his long fingers. Sehun’s hands have never been feminine, not by a long shot with the veins and tendons running strong under soft skin. But like this, there’s something so charming, almost enchanting about them dancing in the air, and Chanyeol feels a wild, exuberant joy when he looks up and sees the familiar depth that’s back in Sehun's eyes.

"Your nails look really pretty," Chanyeol murmurs, not really looking at the nails at all but eyes instead trailing over Sehun’s face.

"Thank you." Sehun smiles, finally, all crinkly eyed and pink, a little bashful.

 _I love you so much_ , Chanyeol thinks, and moves forward to slip his lips over Sehun’s, kissing him slow and soft, holding him there without really pushing. The younger sighs and melts closer into Chanyeol, pushing into him with his warm mouth then pulling back in with a curling tongue. His hands come up to rest gingerly on Chanyeol’s chest, vigilant of wet paint, while the elder’s wrap around him, one hand coming around to stroke light fingers along the shell of Sehun’s ear while the other slips under his shirt to rest around the curve of his waist, skin on skin.

They stay like this, bodies entangled and barely moving, content to sip at each other’s mouths for as long as they can and not do much else. It’s only when Sehun’s mouth starts falling slack for too long in between pulls and his tongue grows slower in Chanyeol's mouth that Chanyeol opens his eyes to find the younger’s face sleepy slack, eyes almost at half-mast in drowsiness.

“Babe.” Chanyeol’s own voice comes out huskier than he intended and he realises how tired he is too.

Sehun hums in response, eyes now definitely closed, plush mouth briefly kissing at Chanyeol’s chin before dropping open and waiting, as if to say _I’m fine, let’s continue_.

The sight squeezes at Chanyeol’s heart. “Let’s go to sleep, Sehunnie.”

“Nooooo,” the younger whines, shoving his face under Chanyeol’s arm and writhing around sluggishly in protest. “Want to.. keep cuddling, your mouth.”

Chanyeol’s face scrunches in laughter, eyes crinkling when he realises what’s happening. A tired Sehun, a really sleepy, bone-dead exhausted Sehun, is a terrible sleep talker. Fragmented sentences, nonsensical phrases and unfinished trains of thought. Unfiltered honesty. Ridiculously touchy.

“You’re not making any sense, Sehun-ah.” Chanyeol gazes down at his boyfriend, his own body heavy with sleep and fondness.

“ _You’re_ not making any senses,” the younger says around a mouthful of Chanyeol’s top. His eyes are still closed and his hands scrunch the fabric of the elder’s tank up his back. Chanyeol really hopes the nails have dried by now.

Yawning heavily, he decides to lay them both down on the bed and pull up the covers. Sehun doesn’t seem to notice, and only continues to press himself closer to Chanyeol like he wants to crawl inside his clothes. Arms and legs wrap tightly around Chanyeol and all the elder can do is hold Sehun just as close and breath in the smell of fabric softener, lime jasmine shampoo, and that other thing that’s just _Sehun_.

“Hey,” Chanyeol murmurs, reaching up to trace a long, meandering line across Sehun’s features. His own eyes follow his finger and almost droop closed. “Now that your nails are done, wanna tell me what was wrong?”

Sehun’s breath falls out with a small puff at the light touches and Chanyeol almost thinks he’s fallen asleep right there. It’s a long pause before the younger finally opens his mouth.

“Just.. weird. Weird mood. Bad day..” The low, slow tones of his voice lull Chanyeol invitingly, but a muted spark of concern keeps the elder lucid.

He struggles for the right words, wading through his thoughts like they’re syrup. “Little bad or- big bad?”

“Mmh.. little bad.” Sehun scrunching his nose slightly and Chanyeol’s chest loosens in relief, eyes closing. “Lots of little, little bads.”

The elder makes a small noise in sympathy, rubbing with his thumb where his hand has come to rest at the small of Sehun's back.

“I’m okay now..” Against Chanyeol’s leg, the younger’s toes twitch like they often do in sleep.

“Yeah?” Chanyeol’s eyelids feel so heavy, and Sehun feels so warm in his arms. _Soft_. It’s nice.

“Yeah.” Sehun snuffles at Chanyeol’s neck and his lips press a small kiss into the skin, then never really lift off and just stay there, content,  grateful.

The assurance is good enough for Chanyeol. Anything is good enough for Chanyeol right now. Sehun, all solid body and warm skin under sleep-soft cotton pressed right up against his chest, is infinitely more than good enough, is all Chanyeol needs as he pushes off consciousness and falls into a weightless sleep.

The way his dream starts feels a lot like his lucidity ending, with everything blurring and something barely audible drifting in on a whisper. It sounds a little like the song he was composing.

It sounds a little like the weight in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> May or may not be part of an ongoing Chanhun canon era series. I've got an EXO'rdium era PWP drafted rn.
> 
> The thing is I know chanse (here on ao3) already has something exactly like that already going on, and its all written so incredibly well and consistently, like they have it COVERED, ain't no need for me to write anything messy of the same. I wanna add to the variety for us good Chanhun folk, you feel? 
> 
> But anyways, please tell me what you think in the comments. Kudos, bookmarks, comments, always soooo so appreciated, I cheese out so hard when I see ao3 notifs in my inbox ^.^
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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